Air Castles
by romeoharvey
Summary: OliviaMelinda, AU on Blast.


**Air Castles**

**Disclaimer:** Law and Order: SVU is not mine.

**Note:** A request from Legaspiweaver to do an AU on Blast. OliviaMelinda

Imagine.

Imagine...

Imagine...

"_Imagine what?_", the woman in the shadows with the anguish racked soul asks herself.

She knows though, knows exactly what she wants to have happened the day her precious lover met with harm.

When the detective imagines what might have been, she can never quite manage to keep her lover from the situation; Melinda was not the kind of person who would shy from where she was needed, even if she had known of the danger that awaited her and anyone in the Manhattan Liberty Bank on January ninth.

So Olivia imagines ways that what happened, might not have.

Maybe if that sharpshooter had not pulled his trigger, or maybe if Daniel Hunter hadn't been high, or maybe if... There are so many 'ifs' about it, and even though Olivia knows it doesn't matter, she keeps on going over and over them, trying to make one happen just by believing that it did.

She's not good at making up fairy tales though, and even if she could believe for a while, there's always the irreversible change in her life that lets her know she was only dreaming.

_Melinda is on the floor like everyone else. _

_She tries to think of what to say to Daniel, then she sees him reaching for Elliot, and she's worried because in this state Daniel could do anything. _

"_I had no choice. Come on-"_

_Daniel, halfway reaching for Elliot pauses, seems to rethink something, and grabs Melinda instead. 'Turn around', he says, and the pair walk to the front doors of the bank._

_Melinda doesn't know anything has happened when, after pulling her in front of him for a moment, Daniel drags her back into the building. It hits her that her fellow hostages are almost panicking over something._

_She feels the vibrations of Daniel's gun going off, and then she sees the people closest to Jack rush to him. He's on the floor, he must have been shot, but why isn't Elliot one of the people around him, why is he staring at her._

"_Damn you, Elliot," the doctor in her wants you yell, "You have training, do something! Don't just look at me!" _

_She hits the floor at some point and Elliot makes his way over to her, telling her to stay with him. Melinda tries to ask him where exactly he thinks she's going, but he's suddenly pressing with all his might at her left shoulder, and it's only then that Melinda notices blood trying to escape from beneath Elliot's palms and fingers. _

The shooter thought he had a good shot for Daniel, and he must have, until that split instant where Daniel moved, or Melinda moved, and the bullet, intended for the young man, hit his hostage instead.

Olivia almost cried when Melinda, in the apartment they had begun sharing only in late November, related to her the latent shock of finding out she had been shot. That was in January, still, not even over a week since Melinda had been shot and nearly died from the wound. To Olivia though, it felt as it years had gone by just in that emergency room, waiting to hear that her lover was going to make it.

_There's something tearing through Melinda. In her shoulder, close to her neck. The pain is strong, and feels as if it's growing. It was growing while she laid on that ice-cold floor, and it was growing even more as she was taken into an ambulance. _

_Now she's laying here, on this bed and staring up at too-bright lights and faces she thinks she may recognize. Yes, she's certain she does know some of these people. One must be a new addition to this hospital staff, because Melinda knows they used to work together. Man, what _is_ his name? Something with a 'J'. _

_She can feel everything they're doing. Every instrument and every gloved hand on Melinda's skin sends rippling waves of pain. She shuts her eyes tightly to drown out the pain and light, and even the noise. _

_So when sensations turn dull, then non-existent entirely, Melinda feels simple relief. The cold begins to cover her like a blanket and she's not even aware of it. She doesn't know now that if she tried to open her eyes, she can't. She doesn't know that the doctors are yelling out their frustration that they're losing her._

_Somehow though, they don't lose Melinda, and she slips into a deep, drug inducted sleep, not death. But the last thought that crosses Melinda's mind is that this must be the end._

Sitting, albeit restlessly, Olivia hopes and hopes that Melinda is strong enough to survive this. From what Elliot had told her during their call, Melinda had been conscious when the paramedics had pulled him away from her.

She know she should be at work right now, not here in the waiting for the emergency room, but she can't just leave Melinda alone, whether her lover gets out alive or not. Because Melinda would do the same for her. The words were never spoken, because these situations were never actually discussed, but the promise was in the way they both departed with such care.

It had been the morning after their second date and Olivia said she had to rush back to her apartment to get ready for work, when Melinda had first ordered her to be careful. She had done it by saying the words while peppering tiny kisses over Olivia's face. It became quite a ritual, and one time, after Olivia had come home from a particularity hazardous case, Melinda had made mind-blowing love to her, then held her tightly as she whispered, when she thought Olivia couldn't hear, that she didn't ever want to lose the detective.

Touched to the point of tears, that somebody cared for her so much, Olivia had to blink them back. Discreetly, of course, because she wasn't supposed to have heard those words. That whole night Olivia had lain half awake, fantasizing on how her and Melinda would share the rest of their lives, and although her heart had been screaming at her to say those three wonderful words, Olivia's mind argued back that she didn't want to scare Melinda off by professing her love so early.

Maybe she should have let her heart win that inner battle right then and there, because she never again felt courageous enough to speak those words.

_Upon waking to see Olivia by her side and being informed by an exhausted looking nurse that the bullet had been removed successfully during surgery, Melinda had been silent. The nurse had left and Melinda still could not speak. Until Olivia kissed her like the prince did sleeping beauty._

_Then Melinda did say something. Words which will tear at Olivia's heart forever. She had said, "Am I dead?"_

_At first Olivia had been thinking that Melinda must be making a joke, but that hope got quashed faster than it was made; Olivia had never heard that kind of resignation in her lover's voice before. Drawing in a strengthening breath, Olivia answers, "No baby, you are certainly not dead."_

_Moving her eyes slightly to the right to stare directly into Olivia's, Melinda asks in a broken whisper, "Shouldn't I be?"_

_Speechless, Olivia had vigorously shaken her head as a reply. When her vocal cords decided to begin functioning again she almost screamed in horror, "No!"_

Olivia did tell Melinda of her love. Just shy of twelve hours after Melinda had awoken in that hospital bed.

She had been transferred over to a room to be observed. At some point when Olivia had been at work, Melinda had managed to switch her plain saline drip with one containing a cocktail of medicines that, in these great quantities, acted as a lethal poison to her system.

Melinda had not spoken to Olivia much, but when she had she would say insane things, the most frightening of which was the statement that she should not be alive.

Olivia had written it off as shock, but when she got there just as the sun was going down, she had to admit, to herself at least, that what Melinda was feeling couldn't be just shock. Because right on that bed her lover laid with a dazed, drowsy look in her eyes, falling faster than Olivia could run to help her.

She tried though, from the doorway she had shouted for a doctor, screaming that the patient needs help NOW!

Someway, Olivia knew in her heart that when help got to them, it would be too late for Melinda. So, having taken a hold of one chilly hand, Olivia had shouted through her tears, "Melinda I'm in love with you!"

Melinda didn't get killed at that bank, and she survived through the operating procedure to remove the bullet.., but on that day, she left Olivia alone forever.

So now the detective only dreams of what may have been, while dying inside just a little more each day.

End.


End file.
